From a Princeton graduate who majored in economics and wrote his senior thesis on the West Coast longshoremen’s labor dispute…

George Parros ‏@GeorgeParros
Lots of talk today about @GeorgesLaraque comments, For those who don’t know me, I’m not into engaging in negativity, especially via twitter.

George Parros ‏@GeorgeParros
Thanks to all my twitter fans who have had my back though! I’ll do it on the ice, you can do it socially.

George Parros ‏@GeorgeParros 5 Jul
Would also like to say BONJOUR to @CanadiensMTL and all of the Habs fans out there! Very excited to play for such a great Franchise!!!
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From an ex player that played hard:

Matthew Barnaby ‏@MattBarnaby3636
U r very well respected and a smart man. More importantly u r going to LOVE the great city of Montreal @GeorgeParros
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From a pure and simple knucklehead:

Georges Laraque ‏@GeorgesLaraque
Thanks for all my haters to making me trending… Hahahaha you’re doing exactly what I want!

Now there’s a guy with character. Might mean we have to trade one of our top-9 forwards. Morrow would be another stop-gap leader for our young guys and would make more aging players expendable. What’s your take?

Hi Fransy
Sign him in a heart beat and then move Moen out.
The left side would look nice with Max-Morrow-Bourque Prust then whatever draft pick we could get for Moen
If we could get him for $3M and subtract Moen at $1.8M that only adds $1.2M. Huge upgrade for little money

“Sources say they expect forward Michael McCarron to decide to play with the Knights rather than attend Western Michigan University. An official announcement may be made as early as Wednesday after McCarron conferred with his family on Tuesday.”

Lindros does not have the numbers (only one season with more than 100 points) and did not win anything of significance. If he would not have been injured, then perhaps but such is life. The fact that he alienated not only Quebec City but Philadelphia as well obviously further diminish his chances. Nothing special about that guy except his ego.

I disagree. He was arguably the most dominant forward for 5 years in the League and certainly every bit as deserving of HHoF induction as Cam Neely. Lindros dominated at every level. Yes he was badly influenced by his entourage (looking at you Bonnie) and I’m glad he never won a cup as reward for being a complete douche, but he performed at an exceptional level on the ice. He sure made the guys around him better. Just ask the other members of the Legion of Doom.

I firmly believe that the success of John Ferguson is what facilitated Serge Savard’s accession to the GM job in Montréal. Sure, he had the brains and presence and leadership necessary for the job, that helped, but John Ferguson showed that an ex-player had his finger on the pulse and could get results quickly. Serge was brought back from Winnipeg and given the job and did an overall excellent job.

So this is before my time also HiS, but were the Flyers gooning it up before the mid-seventies, when Bobby Clarke, Bill Barber, Rick MacLeish, Reggie Leach and Bernard Parent played hockey, and Moose Dupont and Don Saleski and Dave Schultz and others terrified other, non-Larry Robinson-containing teams?

The list of Hall of Fame inductees is out, and this year’s class consists of Chris Chelios, Scott Niedermayer, Brendan Shanahan, Geraldine Heaney, and Fred Shero. Putting aside any latent Canadiens-centric biases, these are all worthy candidates for the Hall, and are beyond debate.

Which leads us right away to those who didn’t get in, even though it’s arguable that none of this year’s candidates displaced a more worthy contender. This isn’t like the Baseball Hall of Fame, which this year inducted no one, because steroids. And it isn’t like the Pro Football Hall of Fame, with its fascination with quarterbacks and skill players at the expense of linemen, and offensive players over defensive players, although the selection committee is working hard to right the imbalance. Which of course has led now to a backlog of record-breaking receivers being forced to wait their turn, with more joining the list as Marvin Harrison, Terrell Owens and Randy Moss reach retirement age.

In any case, the discussion when inductees are announced invariably turns to who was ‘snubbed’. This year, the victims at the forefront are coach Pat Burns and Eric Lindros.

Pat Burns is a legitimate choice, but not a mind-boggling omission. His credentials certainly warrant inclusion, and he certainly will at some point be voted in.

Eric Lindros is another matter entirely. Maybe timing, logistics, and his abbreviated career all have some part to play in his having to wait at least another year, and that’s fine, but that his inclusion is even up for debate is outrageous.

The Hall of Fame is exactly that, a building and tradition to mark the careers of legendary players who have left their mark on the game. And Eric Lindros left an unsurprisingly huge imprint on the sport.

He was one of those once in a lifetime players, following in the tradition of Guy Lafleur, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, players who broke records in minor hockey and junior and scored insane numbers of points. These players were followed throughout their childhood and adolescence by the hockey world, and were eagerly anticipated in the NHL.

Eric Lindros’ entry into the hockey world wasn’t storybook, he refused to report to the Nordiques who drafted him, and he after sitting out one year, he was eventually traded to two teams, the Rangers and the Flyers. While we waited, he had a memorable turn as a Canadian Olympian in 1992. I still have the image of him carrying the puck along the boards as an opponent tried to check him, and bounced off and cartwheeled in the air for his troubles, while Mr. Lindros continued into the attacking zone, an unstoppable force meeting a quite movable object.

His Flyers years were spectacular, and he personified the new NHL, good or bad, the big talented scorer who could put up points or penalty minutes. He updated the tradition of the Flyers as the Broad Street Bullies: they could still tangle with you, but they could outscore you too.

The early-end to his career is lamentable, and shouldn’t count against his candidacy. If it didn’t affect Cam Neely or Pavel Bure, it shouldn’t deter from Mr. Lindros’ bona fides. If anything, his concussion injuries should be seen as the dawning of a new awareness of the dangers of brain injuries. Both his and Keith Primeau’s and Pat Lafontaine’s and Paul Kariya’s abruptly terminated careers now serve as the figurative canaries in the coal mine. They paid a heavy price, but their sacrifice will ultimately save countless others.

In any case, as I often argue in cases like these, any detractors pointing to his controversial reputation, adversarial posturing in his dealings with teams, and to his numbers not quite reaching a desired threshold, can be silenced by pointing to Dino Ciccarrelli, Class of 2010. If that disgusting whackjob can get in, everyone can get in. And Eric Lindros probably above all others.

What was interesting about that incident was how both sides involved treated it. The New York media was, understandably, up at arms about this outright assault. Michel Bergeron was coaching the Rangers at the time, and he did a regular radio bit with CKAC where they interviewed him about what was happening, and when this happened he was so concerned about how “Tô-masse” was doing and how he would recover.

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia broadcasters, while describing that ‘play’, were disgusted at Mr. Sandstrom, and what a dirty player he was, and how now that someone had finally set him straight, he was lying on the ice and acting and embellishing.

Just as jarring as watching a video of the Greg Campbell ‘fight’ perpetrated against Tom Pyatt. I was astonished while reading comments on YouTube the other day, Boston fans blame Tom Pyatt for “going up against the wrong guy”, “if you tangle with a fighter you get what’s coming to you”, they say. As if Mr. Pyatt should have tiptoed around the ice and given a 5-metre exclusion zone to Greg Campbell, Milan Lucic, Sean Thornton, Zdeno Chara, Andrew Ference, ….

…the North American vs European debates then prefaced that despite fighting not allowed in European hockey the Europeans compensated by mastering the arts of spearing, slashing, tripping and over-all stickwork

…so that gave the meatheads of Canadian hockey the Go-card to vivisect ‘Euros’

It’s hard to fault a veteran player with a bad back for being unenthusiastic about getting punched in the face, but once that aspect of his game is gone, his value to the team is at least debatable.

Chris did a good job of quantifying that he didn’t quite refrain from fighting, the number of fights he had was actually quite high compared to the rest of his career, at least his first season in Montréal, but obviously he didn’t inspire the respect he used to as an Oiler, when he took on all comers and laid down the law. He was reduced to cancelling out the other pugilist, marginally better than what Hal Gill did when he was forced to drop the gloves (the Hal Gill ‘Amoeba’ was actually quite effective, considering he saved P.K.’s butt half a dozen times).

It’s too bad, when I watched him playing in the Western Conference, and Donald Brashear with the Canucks, I wondered why we couldn’t gave retained the latter or snapped up the former at the draft, they gave a team a different dimension. When he joined the Canadiens I was really happy, and thought he’d be a major factor in tough situations.

Teddy Harris and John Ferguson were the law back then. The main reason why the Habs of the 60’s had the success that hay did IMO was that the smaller players (there were a lot of them) did not get roughed up for fear of inciting the wrath of Ferguson and Harris.

If I was Aaron Hernandez, I wouldn’t sweat. It’s strictly a circumstantial case, nothing a sharp lawyer can’t poke holes in. With juries trained on years of watching “The X-Files” and “The Fugitive”, how easy will it be to bafflegab a jury that it wasn’t him, it was the one-armed man, anything is possible, there’s a reasonable doubt, never mind the photos of him still chuckling over the corpse.

Look at the Zimmerman trial, he is gonna get off that charge for sure, Dumb people preassure the jury for 2nd degree charge when they should of went for a manslaughter charge. Now he is not going to anything

I to believe that Zimmerman will be found innocent. Hard to belive that someone could be innocent when he in fact killed someone. I personally feel that George Zimmerman was the aggressor in that he was wrongfully following Trayvon Martin.

I just wonder if the circumstances were reversed and Trayvon Martin had killed George Zimmerman that night do you think he would have been able to claim self defence under the stand your ground law??? Probably not.

While it is oft-repeated that the Zimmerman case involves the “stand your ground” law, this is not actually the case so far as I understand it. According to the principle of Avoidance, you should not use force in self-defense if you have the opportunity to retreat. In states where “stand your ground” is in effect, one simply has no duty to make a reasonable attempt at retreat before using force in self-defense.

By the Prosecution’s theory of the case, stand your ground does not apply as Zimmerman was the aggressor. If Zimmerman was the aggressor, self-defense would be invalid, thus rendering “stand your ground” irrelevant unless he “recovered his innocence,” a condition of which is that you exhaust every reasonable means of escape or withdraw (i.e. the former “victim” pursues you and becomes the aggressor). Another is if the initial aggressor’s non-deadly force is replied to with deadly force.

By Zimmerman’s theory of the case, “stand your ground” still would not apply, as, if he was under Martin, being beaten, as he claims, he would not have any ability to retreat, thus rendering “standing his ground” a moot point; he would, quite literally, have had no ground on which to stand, shall we say. According to Zimmerman, he used deadly force in self-defense when he had no ability to retreat, thus even in a state without “stand your ground,” there would have thus been no duty to retreat. The defense has not invoked the “stand your ground law;” they are appealing simply to standard self-defense.

We should also note that, had the circumstances been revered, and Martin had survived by killing Zimmerman, any claim of self-defense on his part could – and I stress could, for the prosecution would have to develop the case and explore the evidence – have been invalidated by the testimony of Rachel Jeantel, who claimed that Martin told her that had reached his father’s fiance’s home and thus, it seems, returned down the path to where the confrontation with Zimmerman occurred.

As in most states, Manslaughter is a lesser included offense in Florida on a 2nd degree Murder charge. The jury will have the option of finding Zimmerman guilty even if they believe that the Prosecution has failed to prove that Zimmerman possessed a “depraved mind,” as is required for a conviction on the charge of 2nd degree Murder. Considering the inability of BDLR to present Zimmerman as either a “wannabe cop” or as a racist, given his tutoring of black youths and friendships with black individuals, one of whom testified in his defense, it appears unlikely that the jury will conclude that Zimmerman was of “depraved mind.”

However, to convict Zimmerman of Manslaughter still requires that the prosecution overcome his claim of self defense; that is, to disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. The requirements for Manslaughter can be proven (i.e. that Zimmerman’s deliberate use of force resulted in Martin’s death – no one disputes that, in fact). However, self-defense is essentially an insurmountable justification for the use of deadly force.

It appears that the Prosecution has introduced some reasonable doubt about some elements in Zimmerman’s narrative. The standard is proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, not introducing reasonable doubt about innocence. Even if the jury considers Manslaughter, the Prosecution appears to have been unable to eliminate the possibility of self-defense.

God only knows whether or not Zimmerman is truly “guilty” as a matter of fact, but by the standards of proof defined by the American criminal justice system, it appears likely that he will be found not guilty of both second degree Murder and Manslaughter.

Thanks, and I appreciate that you use the technically correct phrase ‘found not guilty’. It rankles when someone says that an accused person has been ‘found innocent’. People may be found ‘not guilty’, but they’re never innocent.

Ah yes ,Fergy! My first intro to Enforcers when I was a lad. Loved the guy. I remember Eddie Shack saying about Fergy,”Yeah he hit hard but Man, he would Cut you with those punches. He was mean.Really mean!””

Terry Harper…
what a guy, could not fight his way out of a wet paper bag and yet seemed to enjoy taking on heavyweights, he feared no one. If he were around today, he would probably fight Chara, get creamed, and then spit in Charas face, laugh and do the whole thing again.

probably in Napa, spending his Saturday nights losing as many bar fights as possible.

I would cringe every time he dropped the gloves (which was often). But the difference between him and Komisarek was that he did not let numerous bad losses affect his physical play. I often wish Gorges was more like Terry Harper. He’s got the same pugilistic skill, but that’s it 😉

A bit before my time, but wasn’t there a story about how John Ferguson, after winning many fights against Bobby Hull, once turned him down for another bout, and after the game quipped that he didn’t want to get a reputation as a batterer of women?

…I called John Ferguson an ‘intimidator’ a little earlier …but to be more accurate John was an intimidator of the intimidators, such as Shack, Nesterenko, and the heavies on the Broad Street Bullies

…I can not remember He ever going ‘after’ Bobby Hull …Stan Mikita ,a much more of a hot-head, may have had the poor judgement to go with John, but in My memory Fergie usually kept His peace until He had to protect His Team-mates from the bad-boys of the day or someone challenged Him

My dad told me that story, and he’s been caught stretching the truth a couple of times. I got the sense that the fights weren’t frequent, but that Bobby Hull, as the big dominant player he was, frequently rain into John Ferguson, tempers would boil over, and there would be a fight, which Bobby Hull, while being quite the specimen, would invariably lose. And he’d try again, and again, until John Ferguson sort of avoided fighting him, kind of like Mike Komisarek with Milan Lucic.

Seems to me more of a publicity play for Laraque. A way to stay in the public eye. If his qualifications to be a politician are from his involvement in that CHL players association then this resume is weak.

Hmm. The fact that even Gainey — the master of coddling players as GM — couldn’t stand him to me speaks volumes about Laraque. Running as a candidate for federal office is most appropriate since Laraque is so full of sh*t. He may well have found his natural avocation.

As far as signing so of these older players. To me it all comes down to money and term. I could see going after one or maybe two on a one year contract for cheap to create some depth. But the roster still need to have the roles filled. Also, the lack of size and toughness on the blueline has to be the biggest need now.

Agree Habifax. As if Laraque instilled fear into anyone as a Hab. He was a politician then, trying to convince Gainey that he wasn’t fighting because nobody wanted to fight him. The end of his career was a total disgrace. The only available career path for him now is politics. He deserves to work with people like him: gutless, two faced and entitled.

Say what you want, but in his heyday, Laraque was the best NHL fighter I have ever seen. He had super strength and excellent techinque. Rarely lost a fight in his life and was never KOed, besides one fight where he dominated Brashear and got caught (which was borderline).

Laraque was the best fighter, but he didn’t scare anyone but the other goons because he had a dumb code. If he was like Ryan White and jumped a few people (sure take a couple dumb penatiles) it would be worth cuz people would literally be scared of him

Agreed. In his Western Conference years, Georges was a tower of strength, unbeatable, and feared. I saw him fight Derek Boogaerd, the feared Boogeyman, and it was never a contest. Georges would just dominate him, and pretty much anyone else.

Only comment on Laraque is he was a waste of time, money and space on the Habs. Don’t care if he is running for anything.

On a happier note. Very glad to see the Fog into the HOF. What took so long. He was one of the greatest coaches of his time. I was no fan of the Bullies but he knew how to get the most of all his players. Every guy on his teams would go thru the wall for him. He made that team a Cup winner. Congrats Fred. Sorry it took so long!